


Breadcrumbs all the way home

by faceofstone



Category: Twin Peaks
Genre: Crush Dénouement, Fluff for as long as it lasts, Gen, Male-Female Friendship, old canon only
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-12-24
Updated: 2018-12-24
Packaged: 2019-09-16 16:15:54
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 489
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/16957299
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/faceofstone/pseuds/faceofstone
Summary: What Audrey needed was a friend, a mirror, a reliable support. Two out of three wasn't bad, in the end.





	Breadcrumbs all the way home

**Author's Note:**

  * For [theravenwrites](https://archiveofourown.org/users/theravenwrites/gifts).



**Breadcrumbs all the way home**

 

_ What Audrey needed was a friend, a mirror, a reliable support. Two out of three wasn't bad, in the end. _

  
  


“Agent Cooper,” Audrey perked up one morning, crossing his path in the breakfast hall as he was about to leave for the day.

“I thought that was Colonel, Audrey?” he said. Firm smile, twinkle in his eye and a slight impatience to his step, off he went, out of her sight and out of her reach. He would walk out of the Great Northern's doors and go about doing the adult things in his adult life with his adult peers like Agent Bryson and all that clique. It wasn't easy, getting over a crush, but Audrey was doing her best. For the time being, she focused on hoping that that day's adulting would be something boring, like taxes. Or grocery shopping, but getting just vinegar and a bag of cabbages.

 

“Brigadier General Cooper…”

“Warrant Officer Horne!”

She ended up going to school that day with her hair slicked back, all shiny and flat with a generous heaping of hair gel, and all-black skirt and sweater. Cooper nodded at her superior choice of coiffure and she curtseyed in reply - Audrey Horne had an eye for the hottest fashion trends in town, thank you very much. But there was something else to his acknowledgement, a sad undertone she struggled to parse. She asked and he spoke of symbols, of mirrors, of intertwined threads, of a goldfish in Colorado. She got the distinct impression that Special Agent Dale Cooper had also been a sad and lonely young thing once, looking at life through his own version of the Great Northern's spyholes. She took his hand and squeezed it. They could be friends now. They weren't alone.

 

“Chief Master Sergeant Horne, my regards.”

“I... don't know what's a promotion over the other day. Is General a promotion?”

“We can start again from Private, Audrey.”

She hadn't realised she was holding her breath until that silly reassurance punched it all out. This game of theirs wouldn't have to end, they could keep greeting each other over breakfast and each go about their day with a little complicit smile. If that counted as clinging, so be it. For the first time in her life, the Great Northern's wooden pillars weren't foreign territory, asphyxiating hostile woods with no way out: Cooper traced a path for her among those trees. She could go out in the morning knowing that for a while, so short and uncertain but please  _ please _ make it last, someone in there had her back. The thought gave  _ her _ a firm smile (a real one, if such a thing existed), a twinkle in her eye and, why not, a slight impatience to her step. He waved. Audrey gave him a tentative thumbs up.

  
  


(And the owls came and ate the crumbs, and Audrey Horne was lost in the woods)


End file.
